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Mulligatawny Soup (Take a knuckle of veal five)
239. Take a knuckle of veal five pounds weight; put it on with enough water to cover it. When it is about half done take it off: cut the meat in slices, put it in a cool place till the next dav then take the fat off and fry the veal in a little butter and put it in the soup G with four dessert-spoonsful of curry-powder, a little salt, and four onions sliced and fried in butter. Let all simmer together for two hours; if too thin, thicken it with flour and butter. Serve it up with rice in another dish.
Another. Take four pounds of beef, one and a half of scrag of mutton, two of ham, and a knuckle of veal; cut in small pieces, and put in a gallon of water; reduce to two quarts; add two onions, four turnips, and plenty of carrots. Strain it off, let it cool, take off the fat, and warm it up with two or three sticks of celery, and rub it through a sieve; put it back in the sauce-pan, and add walnut or mushroom ketchup, a table-spoonful of curry-powder, a little cayenne pepper, and the juice of a lemon. Prepare rice as for curry to hand round with it.
Two versions of the same soup: a light veal one and a heavy four-meat stock. Both are two-day projects, and both depend far more on the quality of the curry powder than on anything else in the list.
- The overnight rest is the pointThe overnight rest -- The first version stops halfway, chills the pot, and has the set fat lifted off the next day; the second is simply cooled and skimmed after straining, with no interval specified. Skimming cold makes the set fat easy to lift and gives a cleaner-tasting curried broth. Refrigerate rather than leaving it in a larder.
- Curry powder quantitiesA dessert-spoon is roughly two teaspoons, so four of them is a little under 3 tablespoons for the first version — a fair amount, though a period blend may well have been milder than a fresh commercial one. Start with half, simmer, and judge. Frying the powder briefly in the butter with the onions rather than tipping it into liquid keeps it from tasting raw and dusty.
- Knuckle of vealA veal knuckle (the shin, bone in) is a special-order item now. Veal shin or osso buco cuts work; a beef shin gives a darker, less delicate soup. Five pounds sounds enormous but most of it is bone and connective tissue.
- Scrag of muttonScrag is the bony neck end. Lamb neck is the direct substitute; mutton proper is stocked by only a few butchers, and its flavour is stronger.
- Second version yieldsA gallon of water reduced to two quarts, with the sieved vegetables added, gives roughly four to six servings. The first version gives no water quantity — only "enough to cover" — so its yield cannot be pinned down.
- Sieving the vegetables"Rub it through a sieve" means pushing the softened vegetables through to give the soup body, though the earlier "strain it off" leaves it unclear how much turnip and carrot remain at that stage. No flour is called for in the second version. Use the back of a ladle against a coarse sieve, or pulse briefly in a blender and pass it once to catch fibres.
- Simmering timeThe veal is lifted out only half done, so the two hours' simmering finishes cooking it as well as marrying the curry and onion. Keep it below a boil; the sliced veal will shred if it is knocked about.
- Ketchup means the old kindWalnut and mushroom ketchup are thin, dark, salty condiments closer to Worcestershire sauce than to tomato ketchup. Mushroom ketchup is still made; a tablespoon of Worcestershire is the usual stand-in. Add it at the end and taste before salting further.
- Rice served separatelyBoth versions hand the rice round in its own dish, and "prepared as for curry" means plain boiled long-grain, drained dry. Spoon it into the bowl at the table so it does not swell and thicken the soup in the pot.